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It came from the PUG: I’ll … roll … in … a … minute

Now I haven’t ventured into the dangerous waters of PUG heroics in Cataclysm myself, I think I have better things to do than spend a couple of hours in the company of Joe Random who cheated the iLvL requirement by buying PvP gear …. like washing my socks or something.

But normal Cataclysm dungeons in LFD I’ve had fairly good experiences with. I’ve had some groups where the tank or healer was nervous and the rest of the group was friendly and supportive. I’ve had several groups where different people helped to explain encounters to people who didn’t know them. I’ve even been in a group where one guy started with the ‘gogogo’ and everyone else told him to shut up. And he did!

The worst behaviour I’ve seen so far was the guy who said as we zoned in, “Sorry, meant to queue for the heroic,” and instead of either leaving or finishing the normal instance, he just sat down at the entrance and went AFK. This left the group the option of booting him (which couldn’t happen for 15 minutes) or leaving the instance themselves (leaving gives you a 30 min debuff before you can queue for another random).

Rolling with the slow rollers

But one thing that is mildly frustrating for me at the moment is people who insist on asking “Can I roll need for this drop” when it’s an upgrade for their main spec and role which they are playing at the time.

Really guys, if you are tanking and a tanking upgrade drops, you don’t need to ask if you can roll need. That’s what the need button is for. You don’t even need to ask whether you can roll need for offspec (it’s usually considered polite, but you don’t have to.)

Sometimes people do ask the group if they can roll need for offspec gear. I always automatically say, “Sure, that’s fine,” after a few seconds have passed regardless of who asked or what offspec gear they wanted. I figure it gets things moving, since no one else was probably going to answer. It also makes you feel very authoritative cos the person who asked usually just wants one random person to say yes to make them feel better about rolling.

I was in a group where one of the dps did this and then the healer paged me with a sad face several packs of trash mobs later. Well, chuckles, you could have spoken up and said, “This is an upgrade for my main spec, please don’t roll on it.” If you choose silence instead, don’t whine if you lose a roll.

And speaking of people who are slow to roll, there are occasions where I’d wait to see if the tank rolled need on an item before rolling need for offspec. And I noticed that some tanks (and healers) won’t do this until they can see that no one else in the group has rolled. I don’t know why this is. Surely if they want to need on a mainspec item, they could do that as soon as they compare it with their gear and find that it’s an upgrade. If they don’t need it, that gives everyone else the chance to roll need for offspec without having to ask pointless quests that random group members will answer.

Cataclysm Shot of the Day

Another picture from the revamped old world. I’ve noticed that they’ve been tweaking the colour palette to be more naturalistic in some of the old zones. This is from Blasted Lands, if you can believe it.

As a DPS DK, I roll need on offspec tanking upgrades and immediately say in party chat “rolling need for OS but will pass to (tank) if you need. :)” Nice and fast, avoids any loot drama, and it creates a nice friendly mood. It’s almost artificial, but tanks who then do roll need are very appreciative when I immediately trade it to them if I win the roll.

That is a winner. PUGs seem to always have two issues: Communication and ninjas. I’ve thrown a few “RLY?”s towards people needing when you can tell they’re just DEing or vendoring. You can’t underestimate PUG greed.

No reason to get mad at folks asking if they keep things moving. You can ask while walking forward pretty easily. Communication in a PUG is a *good* thing, for heaven’s sake.

That said, I’ll pull Rades’ move in the future. That’s the way to go. I’ve surprisingly only had one or two folk ask for trades (and never with me) after rolls in my PUG experience.

As one of those tanks, I will say this: I have very little clue of the relative merits of stats, so when I seem to be comparing stats, that’s me poking around my desk for a coin to flip.

In regard to the offspec asking thing, I love it, and do speak up. Last time I threatened to cry if a DK rolled on a tanking trinket. It worked. Then karma paid him back with a drop off the very next boss. I liked that.

Couldn’t they add another button to the roll function that is “Need for Offspec”? I know people would still probably just roll Need if they wanted something, but blizz could just grey out the Need button for certain specs they way they do now for certain classes (like as in I can’t roll need on a melee dps ring)

With such blurred lines of what’s actually meant for each class has made this such an odd issue.

A few nights ago, a “DPS” Neck piece dropped in Heroic. It had Mastary & Crit on it but was hand over fist better than what I had for my tank.

One of our Friends (who normally runs Ret & was pleasent enough to go Holy) told me that it was an upgrade for him as well. I told him that the /roll would duke it out. Happily enough, I won the necklace and Reforged the Crit into Dodge and am very happy with my new item.

In wrath, I would have never dreamed to roll on Ret gear as Viable Prot gear. My thing is if it has Hit, Mastery, or Expertice on it, it’s fair game.

I’ll bet healers and Casters are having the same issues in that department as well since we’re all still gearing up before Raiding. An upgrade is an upgrade I say atleast at this point in time.